Restoration Shaman DPS Guide - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Last updated on May 07, 2024 at 11:20by Seksixeny46 comments

You should look to deal damage as a healer specialization character in orderto optimize your gameplay by filling in moments where your healing will not makea difference with extra damage, which always makes a difference, especially in timedMythic+ runs and raid bosses.

The faster an enemy dies, the less overall healing will have to be done, andit also reduces the probability of mistakes and deaths happening, leading to thedreaded 0,1% wipes common during progression raiding.

Because you will only have 3 DPS players, the difference between a 0 damage healerin Mythic+ dungeons and a healer that actively uses his damage abilities can be upto 10% of the total group DPS. Also, although you are the only healer, you can oftensimply heal your group between pulls instead of during them.

While all Shamans should contribute DPS between their healing requirements,Battle Shamans focus almost exclusively on damage dealing and healingcooldown usage in raids, while saving their healing kit and Mana to emergenciesor hard healing phases.

This is a playstyle that first appeared in the Battle for Azeroth's azeritearmor system, which allowed dedicated Restoration Battle Shamans to deal DPSalmost equal to that of DPS specializations. While the initial trait is no longerpresent, our damage spells were buffed to compensate, and, especially, hadsignificant Mana reductions. This means that DPSing in between healing is moreimportant than ever, even if the dedicated Battle Shaman is mostly dead.

Because of our Mastery healing for more when targets are deeply injured and thenature of a Shaman's healing kit, which combines multiple high-impact cooldownssuch as Spirit Link Totem with the expensive but no-cooldown Chain Healand Healing Surge, it is very viable to focus on damage dealing (which barelyuses any Mana by itself) and cooldown usage until hard healing is required, at whichpoint you can quickly go through your entire Mana pool to do a crazy amount of bursthealing over one minute or so.

• Acid Rain turns your Healing Rain into a good damage spell andshould be used on cooldown if at least one target will be standing within it for itsfull duration;
• Flame Shock is your main damage-over-time (DoT) effect;
• Lava Burst can be a strong single-target spell but is talent-reliant;
• Lightning Bolt is your single target filler spell;
• Chain Lightning is your main AoE spell;
• Stormkeeper is a cooldown that allows you to deal high burst damage on demand.

The talent Lava Surge gives each of your Flame Shock ticks achance to reset the remaining cooldown on Lava Burst and make it instant.Thus, the more Flame Shocks you have active, the higher your odds of gettingextra Lava Bursts, drastically increasing your DPS potential.

Pandemic is a passive effect that makes it so that when refreshing yourperiodic damage or healing effects, the remaining duration is added to the newone, up to a total maximum of 130% of the base duration. Understanding thiseffect is very important to maximizing your damage. For example, if you attemptto refresh Flame Shock (21-second base duration) at 10 secondsleft, the new duration will become 21 + (21 * 0.3) = 27.3 seconds. You will want torefresh your DoTs in a so-called Pandemic window, which is defined asany time before the DoT expiration and 30% of its maximum duration. For theFlame Shock example, it will be a time frame between 0 and 6.3 seconds. CastingFlame Shock at this point will add the full 21 seconds, ensuring you lose no damageand your DoT is always on the target dealing damage.

Because of the low amount of spells involved, the Shaman DPS rotation is verysimple (assuming you took all DPS talents, including Lava Surge):

1. Cast Healing Rain (with Acid Rain) on cooldown;
2. Cast Stormkeeper on cooldown;
3. Cast Flame Shock on each target and refresh it whenever ithas 6.3 seconds or less duration left;
4. Cast Lava Burst at the priority target whenever it is available;
5. Cast Lightning Bolt at the priority target, otherwise.

1. Cast Healing Rain (with Acid Rain) on cooldown;
2. Cast Stormkeeper on cooldown;
3. Cast Flame Shock on each target and refresh it whenever itsdebuff has 6.3 seconds or less remaining;
4. Cast Lava Burst if you get a Lava Surge proc;
5. Cast Chain Lightning, otherwise.

1. Cast Healing Rain (with Acid Rain) on cooldown;
2. Cast Stormkeeper on cooldown;
3. Cast Chain Lightning.

If you lack Lava Surge, just drop Lava Burst from your rotationand proceed with the rotation suggested. You will do less single-target damage,but also use less Mana, global cooldowns, and save a talent point in the process.

Some Dragonflight trinkets have powerful direct damage effects and can be usedwith great effect by us as well. Some of the best ones are:

• Belor'relos, the Suncaller (Amirdrassil);
• Nymue's Unraveling Spindle (Amirdrassil);
• Ominous Chromatic Essence (Aberrus);
• Whispering Incarnate Icon (Vault of the Incarnates);
• Rashok's Molten Heart (Aberrus);
• Water's Beating Heart (Halls of Infusion);
• Screaming Black Dragonscale (Aberrus);
• Pip's Emerald Friendship Badge (Amirdrassil);
• Neltharion's Call to Dominance (Aberrus);
• Spoils of Neltharus (Neltharus);
• Darkmoon Deck Box: Dance (Inscription);
• Idol of the Lifebinder (Jewelcrafting);
• Idol of the Spell-Weaver (Jewelcrafting);
• Alacritous Alchemist Stone (Alchemy);
• Sustaining Alchemist Stone (Alchemy).

These tend to be extra powerful for dealing damage relative to theirposition on the tier list of the gear guide, but any trinkets that give younon-Mastery stats are also fine; make sure to check them out!

As mentioned before, even though this is a DPS guide for Restoration Shamans,you will still be expected to heal whenever needed. You have two options on howto proceed:

• Use your regular healing rotation but alwaysmaking sure to keep Flame Shock active on targets and Lava Burston cooldown. This leads to good sustained healing and damage but low burst healingcapabilities.
• Follow the damage rotation detailed above until healing is absolutely required,at which point you swap to Chain Heal and Healing Surgespam, depending on the type of healing required. This leads to low sustained healingbut good sustained damage and high burst healing capabilities.

Which style you should adopt depends on your raid's needs and the encounter'sdamage profile, and you should generally consult with your raid / healing leaderin order to figure out what style suits your group the best.

In general, equipping the highest item level pieces without Mastery on themwill give you the highest damage. If you have equal item-level pieces, followthe stat priority list below.

1. Intellect
2. Versatility = Critical Strike = Haste